[bsantucci]

Using calc.petaphile.com I came up with the below schedule, does this seem good? First time I'm mixing my own as I previously used pre-mixed from nilocg. I've noticed my hygro dropped a ton of old leaves and some new leaves are kinda twisted. I've had some ludwigia red drop old leaves too and rotala green break on old growth. I figured the pre-mixed ferts weren't the right levels for my tank so I bought the EI pack from GLA.

Mixing in 500mL bottles with a 30mL dose every other day for Micro/Macro. I am also using a gH booster on water change day on Sundays. My tank is a 46g bow front.

To reach your target of 7.5 ppm NO3 you will need to add 35.49 g KNO3 to your 500.0 mL dosing container. Add 30.0 mL of that mix to your 46.0 US gal aquarium to yield

To reach your target of 7.5 ppm K you will need to add 48.505 g K2SO4 to your 500.0 mL dosing container. Add 30.0 mL of that mix to your 46.0 US gal aquarium to yield

To reach your target of 1.3 ppm PO4 you will need to add 5.406 g KH2PO4 to your 500.0 mL dosing container. Add 30.0 mL of that mix to your 46.0 US gal aquarium to yield

To reach your target of 0.5 ppm Fe you will need to add 22.222 g Plantex CSM+B to your 500.0 mL dosing container. Add 30.0 mL of that mix to your 46.0 US gal aquarium to yield

 

[bsantucci]

Hah yeah, that just confused me more. I thought that by using the calculator I can use the doses recommended there and then just mix the macros into my solution and dose 30mL every other day. Same with micro. I do understand that since I dose KNO3 and K2SO4 that I may need to cut some of my KNO3, which is why I was asking here.

I prefer doing the premixed solution as it's just easier each day. Hopefully as you said someone else who mixes solutions can chime in.

My measurements came from selecting 'The Estimated Index' rather than 'EI Daily'. I assume that's right since I do 3 times a week every other day macro/micro?

Did some more searching and came across this, using the EI dosing from the sticky. This person said that they were dosing for 45 gallons, so my 46 should work for this. Plus these numbers come from the 40-60 size tank scale which should easily fit my needs. So if I mix the measurements shown below in each bottle filled with 500mL I should be perfect I believe.

Bottle 1
500mL water + 5.5 Tbsp KNO3 = 33 doses at 15mL per dose (3 doses per week = 11 weeks of dosing)
500mL water + 2 Tsp KH2PO4 = 33 doses at 15mL per dose (3 doses per week = 11 weeks of dosing)
500mL water + 4 Tsp K2SO4 = 33 doses at 15mL per dose (3 doses per week = 11 weeks of dosing)

Bottle 2
500mL Water + 2 Tbsp CSM+B = 50 doses at 10mL per dose (3 doses per week = ~17 weeks of dosing)

 

[bsantucci]

The numbers in your first post look good with the exception of K2SO4. That dose exceeds the solubility of K2SO4. That said you don't need to dose a full 7.5 ppm of K through K2SO4. The KNO3 and KH2PO4 both have K in them. This is usually enough without dosing extra potassium although it won't hurt anything if you want to add a little more.

Below are the EI doses for a 500ml solution and 30ml doses. If you want to add the K2SO4 then adding 2 tsp. will account for what's not in the others.

KNO3 7 tsp. (7.69 NO3 and 4.85 K)
KH2PO4 1 tsp. (1.35 PO4 and 0.55 K)
Plantex 5 tsp. (0.48 Fe)

K2SO4 2 tsp. (1.98 K)

Awesome, I appreciate the assistance here. I have read that I could reduce K2SO4 due to the use of the others, but wasn't sure how best to do that.

So I can actually learn rather than being spoon fed, can you tell me how you came to these numbers? Did you use the calculator I referenced above?

Also, for argument sake, say I wanted to keep using 30mL doses and wanted full dose of K2SO4. You say the number the calc provided isn't soluble in the 500mL. How do you do a concentrated dose then to dose low amounts of solution? Just curious, I will definitely go by your numbers, but again, I like to learn actually so I don't have to lean on others in the future.

Also, based on the doses I found in the other post which I have below here again, is that why this user doses 5.5 Tbsp of KNO3 to only 4 Tsp of K2SO4? He is making up the K lost in lowering the dose of K2SO4 to make it soluble in 500mL?

500mL water + 5.5 Tbsp KNO3 = 33 doses at 15mL per dose (3 doses per week = 11 weeks of dosing)
500mL water + 2 Tsp KH2PO4 = 33 doses at 15mL per dose (3 doses per week = 11 weeks of dosing)
500mL water + 4 Tsp K2SO4 = 33 doses at 15mL per dose (3 doses per week = 11 weeks of dosing)

 

[bsantucci]

Makes perfect sense. I really appreciate it. I've been asking a ton of questions lately to get a grasp on doing things myself and you've answered in every thread so I can't thank you enough. I was doing all cookie cutter type things originally but want to actually understand everything now. I think I have a grasp on everything now. My gh is around 5ish so I'm using just a bit of booster. I'll run with these measurements for a few weeks and see how the plants respond and adjust accordingly.

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